In the midst of the s...storm around us, a short, anecdotal account. My large, KY university moved the classes to online (KY has done some right in this current craziness) before Spring break, for the two weeks after break till April 6, and then it was moved to online for the remainder of the semester.
The dash into the digital delivery (only one week till liftoff then), the relearning after 35 years in the classroom, the concern for teaching the students what the course (and I) expected, and some personal reservations about where it would lead, all fell aside after the first week, after the students attended the online lectures and discussions, after the sky did not fall, after students -- as far apart as CA and Germany (having returned home) were all together again in our digital classroom.
Their enthusiasm, their camaraderie, their engagement with the literature, their apparent need to have some tasks to complete and complete well have made me smile again and again. Some have family endangered, some have a home that they had not expected (or wanted) to return to, some with difficult connections to the internet (tubes), and none expected this readjustment. Still, we are in the class, together.
In a way, we have become a tribe, dancing to the digital words of Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, or Tennessee Williams around the fire of our laptops or PCs or other devices. I am proud of them, and have hope, as always, for the future.